Honestly, I can’t help but see this as attacking a strawman. Does anybody actually think that they’ve done their good deed for the day just by reading and commenting on LW?
When I spend a couple hours on here, I don’t treat it as having been productive even to the degree that I count reading a good book. Now I think I’ve had more good effects from reading LW (for one thing, seeing more areas of my life as things to be optimized) than from most books I’ve read, but it’s just a matter of which mental account I assign my time here to.
I say keep Less Wrong fun and light, an attraction for new aspiring rationalists and an interesting conversation for old ones, and you can start your own damn site if you don’t like that.
ETA: As for the last line, scratch the “start your own damn site”– Yvain’s plan of subreddits is strictly better.
Honestly, I can’t help but see this as attacking a strawman. Does anybody actually think that they’ve done their good deed for the day just by reading and commenting on LW?
When I spend a couple hours on here, I don’t treat it as having been productive even to the degree that I count reading a good book. Now I think I’ve had more good effects from reading LW (for one thing, seeing more areas of my life as things to be optimized) than from most books I’ve read, but it’s just a matter of which mental account I assign my time here to.
I say keep Less Wrong fun and light, an attraction for new aspiring rationalists and an interesting conversation for old ones, and you can start your own damn site if you don’t like that.
ETA: As for the last line, scratch the “start your own damn site”– Yvain’s plan of subreddits is strictly better.